


Blackbird

by kaeltale



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Depression, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Overcoming Crisis, Post-Canon, Short Meditation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 18:03:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12823077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeltale/pseuds/kaeltale
Summary: Dettlaff couldn't leave Toussaint just yet. He could hardly move. A part of him had died here in this land, and like a ghost it haunted what remained.A short ficlet to help me process.





	Blackbird

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a_sparrows_fall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_sparrows_fall/gifts).



> There are some small references in this work that call on aspects of my other stories. If you haven't read them though, here's what you need to know:
> 
> Carmilla is my name for the Queen of the Night; Regis' vampire ex who is referred to in the books as well appearing in The Witcher 1.
> 
> Mis cara is Etruscan (vampire speak established in Blood and Wine) for "my beloved".
> 
> Dettlaff was one of Regis' crypt-mates when they were both young.

Dettlaff found himself frozen to the borders of Toussaint. A part of him had died in this land, and like a ghost it haunted what remained.

The sun had long set over Mount Gorgon. Not a trace of afterglow touched the valley's midnight hues. The still night rang with the singular, mournful song of a blackbird, desperately cutting its shrill falsettos into the silence, but Dettlaff took little notice of the noise. The events of the past month were already fading into the annals of history as Beauclair recovered from its tragedies, but they weighed heavy in the vampire's mind.

Cold, damp air breathed out from an abandoned mine, ruffling through his tangled hair as Dettlaff sat propped against the slick stone wall. Ashy dirt dusted his leather coat, fading its black luster. He did not feel the cold of the air or of the earth, but a chill gripped him.

There was nothing left of him now. She had shattered every part that had defined him. No more than a wraith remained; a monster born of regret and sorrow, yet he lived. He wasn’t sure if he should be thankful for his life. Some creatures simply did not belong in this world. They were not born for it. He shouldn’t exist. He should never have existed.

Perhaps life was the greatest punishment he could have received.

Though tears and screams had exhausted him, wet trails prickled down his cheeks once more. The mutinous trembling of his body sickened him, his thoughts sickened him; that he continued to feel at all filled him with hate.

Perhaps in staying here he truly would become a wraith. Did wraiths still feel? Were they aware of their pain? Would such a state end his suffering, or immortalize it?

The birdsong ceased, and without sight or sound to warn him Dettlaff had the sudden awareness of another vampire’s proximity. He made no effort to acknowledge his intruder, nor did he move to compose himself. Masks did not work on Regis.

His blood brother said nothing as he sat down next to him, and Dettlaff did not dare to look at the other man. He fixed a blank expression to the opposite wall; leaving himself raw and exposed to scutiny. He expected some form of judgment to come; some wise words of reproach from the boundless intellect of his... whatever he was to him now. What he did not expect was the back of a gloved fist gently brushing his face.

Dettlaff flinched at the contact, but Regis carefully reached over to dry his tears with steady composure. His message was clear; Dettlaff would not be allowed to ignore his presence.

“Why are you here?” Dettlaff's voice rasped in an unfamiliar tone, wounded from misuse.

“I’m here for you, of course.”

Regis nestled into the ground and pressed his shoulder against him, but the warmth that rippled through his body didn't permeate completely.

“Leave. There is no point.”

Without warning, Regis pulled Dettlaff’s chin toward him, forcing their eyes to meet. Sunken black orbs bore into him with an intensity that blinded, pressed with hard-edged brows. Every crease of Regis' weathered face angled inward to point out his fixed determination. Dettlaff might have thought such a look meant anger, but not with Regis. Never with Regis. 

His thin lips pressed into a line before he spelled out each word, “I want you to listen to me. Just listen. Don’t speak until I’m finished.

“You are in progress, my friend. Destructively, beautifully in progress, which has been made all the more difficult by recent events. There will be setbacks. This is not an easy process by any means, and now is a time when you need to rely on others. You have to reach outward. It will take courage, far more courage than you realize you yet possess, but it’s in you. I’m sure of it.”

Dettlaff opened his mouth to speak, jaw still held in place by Regis' taloned fingers.

“No, you are listening to me now, and you need to hear this. Dettlaff, you are a magnificently sensitive and lovingly broken man, and you are starting down a path where you must learn what it truly means to mend. One day you will surpass your ruin. No matter how jarring this situation has been, and no matter what you believe about yourself. But there’s something you must first understand.

“Starting here and now, you have to put down the flog. _She_ desecrated you well enough, you don’t need to continue her work. I’ll have none of your self-pity, and I’ll hear no excuses. You are going to get past this, and I am here to help see you through it.”

“I do not deserve your help. You owe me nothing. I would have killed you at Tesham Mutna had you stood against me,” Dettlaff shook his head free from his captor. “Your debt is paid. I do not—”

“No pity, no excuses,” Regis pulled him back with a delicate palm against his cheek, maintaining their connected gaze.

Dettlaff looked away. His mind, bogged down from neglect and strain, frenzied to process everything Regis had said. In the quiet space between them, the birdsong continued in misplaced trills.

“Why?”

“Because you are worthy,” Regis' response came quickly, without need for thought. “Because I know you will overcome this, as I’ve overcome my own loss of self. Even broken as you are, you are a better man than I was then. You sit here struggling with a conscience that I took centuries to develop in myself. You already understand what I had to lose everything to learn; caring for others simply because they are alive. I will not let that selfish little girl destroy something as beautiful and rare as you in this gods forsaken world we’re trapped in. You are not the sum of your mistakes, Dettlaff!”

The sheer conviction in his voice completely undid him. Weight came crashing into existence, and he slumped forward into a waiting embrace. His forehead collided with Regis' padded shoulder, and a mess of black hair swept down to shield his vision. Regis challenged every belief he held with pinpoint accuracy, and he while wanted to fight back, he was helpless to the lure of the words. There was an equal urge to rip apart the love and logic being thrown at him as there was to simply be held, but fatigue had won, and his mind drained of retaliations.

 _Pitiful._  How could he accept what this mad man was saying? Who in their right mind would stand with him after witnessing so much?

“What pretty lies you tell,” Dettlaff finally sobbed out, the tension rising in his stomach. He shuddered, but Regis held on to him tighter, forbidding the sense that he could escape.

The warbling of the bird grew louder in competition with Dettlaff’s faltering breaths.

“Do you remember when we were young? How that arrogant little shit named Emiel would torment you for your abstinence?”

Dettlaff shrugged his shoulders. Of course he remembered. Though Regis was hardly his only antagonist during those times of blood-fueled lawlessness.

Undaunted, Regis pressed on, “We parted ways before you saw the worst of it – the worst of me. You always knew how foolish it all was. I should have listened to you when I had the chance. You didn’t have to witness what I did to my friends; what I did to Carmilla. What I did to countless humans, without a scrap of caring past my own vanity. When I lost control completely, all that was left was the blood.

“But I _had_ to lose everything. It was the only way the lesson would get through. The lesson you were born with was one I had to buy with countless lives. And here I am, still learning, still striving, and continuously paying back each of those lives. All because you gave a part of yourself to save an egotistical whelp whom you had every right to hate. That is the man I am here to preserve.”

“That man died with Rhena. He died with de la Croix,” Dettlaff pulled himself back from Regis. The fight had nearly left him, but the defeat left room for shame. The longer he let himself sink into that comforting embrace, the more he felt he would be sick. “It was the memory of this dead man that set Beauclair ablaze.”

“Broken, not dead. I know you believe that now, but take to heart the words of another broken creature that sometimes you must first lose everything to find yourself. There is atonement for what you have done, and you do not need to find it alone.”

“Why should I care for an atonement? I wish to leave behind the world of men. What more can I do for them than keep my distance?”

“And here I thought you’d done away with illusions,” Regis teased. “We are both aware there is no leaving this world,” Regis offered out his hand. In it he held the ring of twin serpents Dettlaff had thought lost to him, its ruby jewels peering back with condemnation. “We are guests here, remember? You’ll only prolong the inevitable by running from this truth. You must adapt, and to adapt you must face what you have done.”

He hesitated, but Dettlaff eventually took the ring and held it between his fingertips. Though light as he’d remembered it, somehow it felt heavier to him now. The cold metal burned into him like a holy relic. How much had he failed to live up to Regis’ expectations? The symbol that was to serve as a compass to his ideals became lost with his tarnished morality.

“I loved her… I _still_ love her. Emiel, what is wrong with me? I killed the woman I love!”

Regis rested his head back on the wall. “There was once a time I would have killed anyone who got in the way of my addiction. Was I beyond redemption?”

“You ask this of the one who carried you from your bed and changed your dressings for half a decade?” a weak smile touched the corner of Dettlaff’s mouth.

“Yes, you took me into your home and shared your blood with me. Despite it all, you loved me.”

“I love you now,” and though Dettlaff meant the words with all his being, he felt them more a curse than a blessing.

“Do you think you are the only one between us capable of such a feeling?”

Dettlaff could not answer that. It was not a question meant to be answered, only felt. The bird gave another sharp cry of sorrow, futile in its search for a reply.

“I do not know how, but I believe you. I want to believe you. I want to believe in this path you have set before us, though I cannot imagine what it looks like.”

“For now, that is enough. You gave me a second chance, and now it’s my turn to carry you. This isn’t an ending, _mis cara_ , but the beginning of something else.”

 _Mis cara._ The words pierced him in the most wonderful way. “After everything you’ve seen in me, you would want to call me yours?”

“You are as beautiful to me as ever. Your portrait now has black outlines to contrast with the lighter hues. It’s a much more complete picture, and just as exquisite. You lost yourself, but not me. I was always waiting for you.”

“I will never deserve you…”

“Life is not about what we deserve. You loved who you were once, and you will again. In the meantime, I am up to the task.”

“Do you know why blackbirds sing at night?” Dettlaff mused.

It was not a test of knowledge, but a precursor to another meaning, and blackbird tried its best to answer before Dettlaff continued.

“Like mockingbirds, they sing when they are alone. When paired, they sleep silent as any other songbird.”

“In truth it is a plea for affection,” Regis smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> The beautiful work of a_sparrows_fall, particularly [Magpie](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12500572), was partially responsible for this ficlet, and so I make a gift of it to him. Thank you for welcoming me with open arms, and encouraging me to write. Thank you for giving a voice to my story. I'm learning more every day thanks to you and Dordean. You are both such amazing people, and I am lucky to call you friends.
> 
> If you haven't already read their work, please look up [a_sparrows_fall](http://archiveofourown.org/users/a_sparrows_fall/pseuds/a_sparrows_fall) and [Dordean](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dordean/pseuds/Dordean) on AO3!


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